The Silence
Published on 28. March 2024
80 pages
978-1-80017-393-4 (ISBN)
Description
Shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry 2025
A Poetry Book Society Spring Recommendation 2024
'The days have no names.
The day they count the dead,
the day they closed the doors,
turned off the lights.
We're still here in the silence,
hearing tree-talk,
the wind's secrets,
the company of birds.'
('The Year of the Dead')
The poems in Gillian Clarke's The Silence begin during lockdown, to whose silences Clarke listens so attentively that other voices emerge. As the book progresses, that silence deepens, in the poems about her mother and childhood, about the Great War and its aftermaths, and in her continuing attention to Welsh places and names, and the rituals which make that world come in to focus. In these scrupulous, musical poems, Clarke finds consolation in how silence makes room for memory and for the company of the animal- and bird-life which surrounds us. These poems, compulsively returning to key images and formative moments, echo and bring back other ways of living to the book's present moment.
A Poetry Book Society Spring Recommendation 2024
'The days have no names.
The day they count the dead,
the day they closed the doors,
turned off the lights.
We're still here in the silence,
hearing tree-talk,
the wind's secrets,
the company of birds.'
('The Year of the Dead')
The poems in Gillian Clarke's The Silence begin during lockdown, to whose silences Clarke listens so attentively that other voices emerge. As the book progresses, that silence deepens, in the poems about her mother and childhood, about the Great War and its aftermaths, and in her continuing attention to Welsh places and names, and the rituals which make that world come in to focus. In these scrupulous, musical poems, Clarke finds consolation in how silence makes room for memory and for the company of the animal- and bird-life which surrounds us. These poems, compulsively returning to key images and formative moments, echo and bring back other ways of living to the book's present moment.
Reviews / Votes
'The Silence is not concerned only with the pandemic. Gillian Clarke's writing frequently offsets her awareness of the naturalness and depth of her roots in rural Wales with the sense of strangeness which comes from having English as her "mother-tongue". These meditations are delicately handled in the collection, and particularly striking in the context of environmental catastrophe. What now threatens the landscape which Clarke has farmed and nurtured, in life as in verse, are shadows which roll across the globe, turning, for many people, the possibility of belonging anywhere into wishful thinking. The Silence is full of poems which remind us of the importance of place, and the demand of its words and silences to be listened to.'Carol Rumens, The Guardian Poem of the Week 'Rich with repetition and punctuated by potent page breaks, this extraordinarily incisive collection creates space to reflect upon how the pandemic has transformed us and what, in the face of loss and quiet, our hearts have learned.'
Jo Clement, The Poetry Society Bulletin 'Clarke's skill lies in using simple language to record moments of great beauty, no less lovely for sometimes being familiar. She reminds us of the comfort to be drawn from paying attention to nature'
Rishi Dastidar, The Guardian 'There is a numinous quality to this book, a kind of spiritual attention which reveals, by silence and contemplation, the wondrous.'
Stephen Sexton, Irish Times 'This is a collection which deserves the reader's full attention. The poems may at times prove uneasy, they will make us think and maybe demand reading again, and again. But they will remain with us.'
James Caruth, The North 'What a pleasure to spend a book's length with Gillian Clarke's luminous lyrics. ... With the deft surprise of her images, her keen observations, and canny storytelling, she still has so much to teach new poets and so much to say.'
Zoe Brigley, Poetry Wales
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Carcanet Press Ltd
File size
2,18 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-80017-393-4 (9781800173934)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
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Person
Born in Cardiff, Gillian Clarke is a poet, playwright, editor, broadcaster, lecturer and translator (from Welsh). She edited the Anglo-Welsh Review from 1975 to 1984, and has taught creative writing in primary and secondary schools and at university level. She is president of Ty Newydd, the writers' centre in North Wales which she co-founded in 1990. Since 1994 she has been a tutor in Creative Writing at the University of Glamorgan. Her poetry is studied by GCSE and A Level students throughout Britain. She has given poetry readings and lectures in Europe and the United States, and her work has been translated into ten languages. She has a daughter and two sons, and now lives with her architect husband on a smallholding in Ceredigion, Wales, where they raise a small flock of sheep, and care for the land according to organic and conservation practice.
Gillian Clarke was National Poet of Wales 2008 - 2015.
Carcanet has published her Selected Poems (1985), Letting in the Rumour (1989, Poetry Book Society Recommendation), The King of Britain's Daughter (1993), Collected Poems (1997), Five Fields (1998) and Making the Beds for the Dead (2004).
Listen to Gillian in conversation with Nadia Kingsley on the Fair Acre Press DIVERSIFLY podcastabout her writing process, what poetry is, and the Welsh language.
Gillian Clarke was National Poet of Wales 2008 - 2015.
Carcanet has published her Selected Poems (1985), Letting in the Rumour (1989, Poetry Book Society Recommendation), The King of Britain's Daughter (1993), Collected Poems (1997), Five Fields (1998) and Making the Beds for the Dead (2004).
Listen to Gillian in conversation with Nadia Kingsley on the Fair Acre Press DIVERSIFLY podcastabout her writing process, what poetry is, and the Welsh language.
